In recent years when a great variety of foodstuffs are available abundantly, people of these days are inclined to intake excessive nutrition, and this causes obesity. For this reason, some young women minimize their intake of food in the hope of avoiding becoming obese.
However, this can cause the problem of unbalanced food intake, often causing a variety of physiological and psychological problems, such as sitiophobia and the resulting overeating.
It is generally considered that self-control of eating is desirable for preventing to be obese, but it is almost impracticable to voluntarily give up the intake of tasty food in these days, the age of gourmet.
To solve this problem, use of the reducing drugs has been proposed. In European countries and the United States, for example, Fenfluramine, Fluoxetine and other drugs are now commercially available, and Mazindol (Sandoz Pharmaceutical Ltd., Switzerland) for inhibiting the desire to eat, has also been developed. However, these are medical pharmaceuticals directly or indirectly acting upon the alimentary center and the satiety center of hypothalamus in the brain, and hence their adverse effects are unavoidable. In addition, the efficacy of these pharmaceuticals may decrease upon repeated administrations.
It is known that excessive intake of nutrition causes obesity, and sometimes leads to the so-called adult diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, heart disease and apoplexy. It has been reported that foodstuffs, that cause lipid production including cholesterol and neutral fat (triglycerides), are involved in the occurrence of cerebrovascular disorders, namely, arterioscelrosis and heart disease.
Furthermore, the increased occurrence of adult diseases in the younger generation resulting from excessive intake of nutrition has become a social problem.
It is reasonable to say that food should be restricted to prevent excessive intake of nutrion. However, various limitations of foodstuffs thus required mean the limitation of cuisine, and this gives housewives a great deal of extra labor.
When one of the family members might be at the risk of becoming obese or falling victim to an adult disease, a housewife must prepare special food, in addition to the ordinary food for the other family members. This gives her a great burden.
This stimulated the realization that fattening foodstuffs, even if taken in excessive amounts, would not cause obesity or adult disease if the excess portion of the nutritive food materials dissolved during digestion were excreted without absorption by the body.
This concept has already resulted in the applicant's invention of a drug for preventing the absorption of food materials dissolved during digestion (Japan Patent Application No. 105474 in 1988), which is characterized by the oral administration of a cavity device that allows a certain amount of the dissolved food material to be efficiently excreted with the feces.
Although the aforementioned cavity device is fairly effective, the excretion of the dissolved food material is limited, because the dissolved food material is incorporated into the aforementioned cavity device. A permeable membrane or a membrane having a valve is required for the preparation of the aforementioned cavity device. This involved problems of the difficulty in manufacturing and a high production cost.